Comment by nl
6 hours ago
I LOVE being able to create images of things I could previously only imagine.
I think the inability to see the freedom AI gives people is one of the saddest things I've seen.
I remember when the internet was young people would complain about how it was becoming read-only.
Now we have a tool to let people express themselves and people complain the fact there are fake pics on AirBNB means the collapse of society. Please!
You should reconsider the scope. Nobody is losing sleep over Airbnb pics.
We’re in an era now where every image and video (and for that matter audio) is potentially fake; where knowing what’s real and true is no longer possible.
> We’re in an era now where every image and video (and for that matter audio) is potentially fake; where knowing what’s real and true is no longer possible.
This was always the case. Spin and propaganda are not new, the way it's conveyed has just become a bit easier. People are not as susceptible to misinformation as most assume, they recalibrate how much stock they put into the things they see based on the quality of the information environment. Basically everyone knows now that the internet has a low signal to noise ratio.
No, this really hasn't always been the case. At least not in the sense it is today.
20 years ago your misinformation came from television, radio, and print. All of those things were expensive to produce and there was an implicit need for them to be at least vaguely believable and reliable, because their existence depended on it to continually generate revenue.
- Today, a single person produce 100% AI-generated media for basically the cost of their time.
- That media is as high quality as anything else out there.
- Social media platforms provide the delivery system for free.
- There's no real way to tell if there's even a real person behind the name/pseudonym used for posting it. It might be a person, it might be an algorithm, it might be a nation-state. You have no way to know.
Coincidentally, this is at the top of HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48355751
It's more about using LLMs to impersonate someone, but the point stands.
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>I LOVE being able to create images of things I could previously only imagine. Did you only just get access to a pencil?
This empowers people who have great imagination but lack skill and the time to develop it. I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to understand.
> I think the inability to see the freedom AI gives people is one of the saddest things I've seen.
No one’s failing to see the good things, hypothetical or not. Most of us are aware just fine, we just don’t all agree that the negative trade-offs are worth it.
I enjoy the technology too, but the tradeoffs are pretty grim. It takes stepping outside of my bubble to see it in full force, but AI misinformation is already rampant.